Good Pal

In the 1980s director Jaroslav Soukup delivered several attractive titles with young heroes to mainstream audiences. These included Vítr v kapse (Wind in the Pocket) (1982), Láska z pasáže (Love from the Arcade) (1984), Discopříběh (Discostory) (1987) and above all 1988’s Kamarád do deště (A Good Pal). The film, which a decade later received a follow-up entitled Kamarád do deště II – Příběh z Brooklynu (A Good Pal II – Brooklyn Story), built on the subject matter and casting of Soukup’s earlier pictures. In A Good Pal Lukáš Vaculík and Sagvan Tofi, who Soukup first cast in Wind in the Pocket, portray a pair of buddies that together make it through a variety of trying life situations. They are in professions which in the late communist period were associated with the opportunity to make extra money, not necessarily legally: Michal is a waiter and Tomáš is a taxi driver. When Michal’s takings are stolen by a masked thief, Tomáš borrows money for a week from an illicit moneychanger. His friend is on probation and the police can’t be involved. The pair have seven days to repay the debt, inflated by a usurious interest rate. What’s more, they learn that the robbery was initiated by Michal’s colleague Kadlec and his son-in-law, the fence Bureš. The young men decide to lay a sophisticated trap for Kadlec. They also teach Adamec a lesson, and hand their two adversaries over to the police… In the screenplay, which Soukup penned with favoured collaborator Miroslav Vaic, the “moral behaviour” of the heroes in a world full of conmen and thieves is accented. However, the unsuspecting art historian Syřiště also becomes part of their scheme. The heroes can’t inform the judicial authorities of their problems as they wouldn’t believe them (and they in turn don’t trust them). The only alternative is to take justice into their own hands. Vaic and Soukup deftly transpose a classic concept (evidently inspired by the 1973American crime comedy The Sting) to late 1980s Czechoslovakia.